Senior Congress leader and former Delhi minister Dr AK Walia passed away on Thursday due to COVID-19. Walia, 72, breathed his last at the Apollo Hospital in Delhi.
Walia was elected to the Delhi Legislative Assembly four times between 1993 and 2013. He had served as a Cabinet minister (Health, Urban Development, and Land and Building) in the Sheila Dikshit government in Delhi.
Walia, who also had a clinic in Laxmi Nagar, contested polls from East Delhi’s Geeta Colony for the first time in 1993. After delimitation, he contested from Laxmi Nagar.
He quit the Congress briefly in 2017, after alleging that tickets for MCD polls were being given to undeserving candidates in exchange of money. He later rejoined the party and fought his last election from Krishna Nagar in 2020. He lost to AAP’s SK Bagga.